A structured approach for validation and verification of aircraft trajectory predictors

A generic trajectory predictor (TP) structure is presented including the decomposition of the TP into individual services. This TP structure allows us to describe specific elements of the TP that are being validated during different stages of validation. A TP validation strategy is developed by first considering the portion of the ATM system being modeled by the TP and decomposing the ATM system into elements that can be individually validated. This can be accomplished using different classes of data that have been identified: aircraft performance model data, FMS/simulation data, aircraft flight data recordings, and ATC operational data recordings. For each data class, different control loops can be modeled from the innermost to the outermost loops. We seek to verify the TP by first verifying the inner loops then gradually working outwards as confidence in the core model develops.